Microsoft urged to boost digital initiative

Sri Krishna | New Delhi | February 21, 2017 1:37 pm

Ravi Shankar Prasad (PHOTO: Facebook)

Information Technology giant Microsoft was on Tuesday urged by IT and Electronics Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to consider the use of the company’s innovative technology in the upcoming DigiGaon (Digital Village) initiative.

Prasad, who on Tuesday met India-born CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella, asked the company to extend assistance for this project.

"Had a good &productive meeting with @satyanadella. He deeply appreciated the success of ongoing #DigitalIndia program, which is transformative," the minister tweeted after talks with Nadella here.

"Requested @satyanadella to consider the use of their innovative technology in the proposed Digigaon (Digital Village) initiative," Prasad said.

In the Union Budget for the 2017-18 Fiscal, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that a DigiGaon initiative will be launched for the provision of telemedicine, education and skills with the help of digital technology.

"It was fantastic to spend time with Minister Prasad, talking about the great progress India is making with IndiaStack and Digital India," Nadella said.

IndiaStack is a set of application programming interface (APIs) that allows governments, businesses, startups and developers to utilise a unique digital infrastructure to solve India's problems towards "presence-less, paperless, and cashless service delivery".

"For us at Microsoft, our mission is to empower every Indian and every Indian organisation to be able to achieve more and with the policies of the Government of India. We are excited to contribute to help take advantage of Digital India," Nadella said in a video posted by Prasad on his Twitter account.

Nadella will tomorrow address "Future Decoded", Microsoft's two-day flagship technology and business conference that started off in Mumbai on Tuesday.

The conference is a platform that brings together 1,500 business and government decision-makers to engage in conversations on how technology will transform all aspects of our work and life.

Earlier on Monday, leading e-commerce major Flipkart tied up with Microsoft to use its Azure Cloud platform for boosting its e-tail sales. The strategic partnership was announced by Nadella on his maiden visit to Bengaluru after he took over the reins of the world's largest software product firm in February 2014.